Separator for coal and the like



Dec- 12, 93 G. w. NEIFERT ET AL SEPARATOR FOR COAL AND THE LIKE Filed Aug. 31. 1931 Patented Dec. 12, 1933 SEPARATOR m COAL AND THE Neifert and William Howard Kutz, assignors, by direct and George W.

Summit Hill, Pa.,

LIKE

mesne assignments, of one-half to Earl J.

vWagner, Tamaqua,

Pa., and one-fourth to said George W. Neifert and one-fourth to said William H. Kutz Application August 31, 1931. Serial No. 560,448 4 Claims. (01. 209-397) Our invention concerns screens or separators for'the automatic classification or separation of coal and material accompanying or associated therewith as mined and. when discharged from the breaker or crusher. .As is well known, the coal itself is in lumps of various sizes with some thinflat pieces, and is accompanied by slate, also flat and thin. Separation or picking of the flats, (which includes slate as well as thin flat pieces of coal distinguished from lumps) as well as grading the coal according to the size of the lumps, is required. Such separators or pickers known to us out of our actual experience in collieries are not as efiicient as is desirable'and are otherwise unsatisfactory. An important object of our invention is the production of a screen or separator which will be more satisfactory'irom the standpoint of efiiciency and cost of manufacture than those with which we are familiar.

Our invention consists in Whatever is described by or is included within the terms or scope of the appended claims.

In the drawing:-

Fig. l is a perspective view with parts in section of a picker element or member of a coal screen embodying our invention;

Fig. 2 is a vertical longitudinal section showing a part of a screen assembly which includes our picker member and a grading or sizing mem ber.

Referring particularly to Fig. 1, it will be seen that our picker member is a flat metal plate, 10, of the width of the shaking screen to which it is secured (either alone or as shown in Fig. 2 with coal sizing members, 11) and which has at opposite sides upturned flanges, 12, for holding to the sides of the screen frame. The fiat horizontally extending portion of the plate, 10, lying between the flanges has parallel transversely extending rows of rectangular holes, 13, from which at the forward edge of each hole (speaking with reference to the direction of passage of the material over the plate) projects downwardly and rearwardly at an incline a flat lip, 14, whose .length is preferably co-extensive with the length of the hole or slot. These lips are preferably integral with the plate and they and the holes are inexpensively formed by a simple dieing operation which cuts through the plate to form three sides or edges of the hole and simultaneously bends down the lip at the desired angle. Thus the manufacture is inexpensive and the upper side of the plate has no upstanding projections whatever with which the material passing there- ?lover will collide and slow down the operation as well as tend to clog. The upper surface of the plate is smooth and flat adjacent and between the holes.

The holes preferably in alternating rows are each as long as is possible with narrow divisions, l5 between adjacent holes and the remaining holes are shorter each about half the length of the longer holes and these shorter holes preferably are in staggered relation'to the longer holes. The shortening of the holes of alternate rows provides a wide transversely extending division,

16, between adjacent holes, the result being that the cutting of the plate to provide the holes does not weaken or diminish the strength of the plate to an objectionable degree, and, of course, its strength is vital because the weight or gravity ofthe heavy material passing over it tends to sag or bend the plate. By the described arrangement, we secure the maximum of holes with the minimum of reduction of strength or the maximum of strength having reference to the heavy burden the plate must support. This matter of the relative sizes of the holes is also of importance, for a function reason, as is presently explained.

It will be understood that with the material passing over the plate, it is vibrated longitudinally or parallel with the direction of how of material. On the forward movement of the plate or screen, the solid parts will move forward from beneath the material resting thereon and present to the material the holes into which flats and pieces of coal smaller than the area of the holes will fall and contact with the rearwardly inclined lips below the hole, and on the reverse movement of the plate those pieces of coal and flats resting on the lips will, by contact with the lips and as well by force of gravity, slide rearward from the lips and pass through the holes or spaces between the lips and the hole edges. Those pieces resting on the lips, which are too large to pass out of the holes, on a succeeding forward movement of the screen will be carried onward and reaching the flat, smooth imperforate portions of the plate will slide thereover to the next row of holes. It has been found by actual test that the wider, imperforate portions of the plate between sucees-- sive rows, due to the shortening of the transverse dimension of the short holes, results in a quick er movement of the material from one row of holes to the other and makes the material passing thereover self-clearing so that by the time the next row of holes is reached, there will be a separation of the pieces which will facilitate the flats-eliminating action of the following holes,

Our flats picker or separator and grader may be used alone or as shown in Fig. 2, it may be one member or section of a screen that is pro vided with coal grading or sizing sections, the sections being arranged in alternation. This provides in the one screen both flats picker and sizer or grader so that as the flats picker section also grades, the one screen is provided with two sizing or grading elements or sections.

Besides the advantages which have been mentioned in the cleaning of the coal by the separation of all flats and other objectional material such as undersize lumps of coal, wooden chips and other refuse accompanying the coal, there is a turning or rolling action imparted to the coal in its passage which makes a better looking product for the market; clogging will not take place; there is diminished breakage of coal because there are no abrupt surfaces against which the coal strikes; and there is no backing up of material on the shaker.

What we claim is:-

1. A coal screen member comprising a plate with holes of several sizes, the holes having at the forward edge lips that extend therefrom downwardly and rearwardly at an incline, certain of the holes being smaller than others and the small holes being separated by a flat extended surface of substantially greater area than similar surfaces between adjacent larger holes and the small holes being in rows that alternate with rows of large holes.

2. A coal screen member comprising a plate with holes of several sizes, the holes having at the forward edge lips that extend therefrom downwardly and rearwardly at an incline, certain of the holes being smaller than others and the small holes being separated by a flat extended surface of substantially greater area than similar surfaces between adjacent larger holes, the holes being in straight rows with the greater dimensions of the larger holes extending transversely and the small holes being in rows that alternate with rows of large holes.

3. A coal screen member comprising a plate with holes of several sizes, the holes having at the forward edge lips that extend therefrom downwardly and rearwardly at an incline, certain of the holes being smaller than others and the small holes being separated by a flat extended surface of substantially greater area than similar surfaces between adjacent larger holes, the holes being in straight rows with the greater dimensions of the larger holes extending transversely, the holes of adjacent rows being staggered and the small holes being in rows that alternate with rows of large holes.

4. A coal screen member comprising a plate with holes of several sizes, the holes having at the forward edge lips that extend therefrom downwardly and rearwardly at an incline, certain of the holes being smaller than others and the small holes being separated by a flat extended surface of substantially greater area than similar surfaces between adjacent larger holes, each hole having three straight edges and the lip for each hole-be ing integral with the plate, and the plate being wholly free from projections from its upper side, all solid portions of the plate on the upper side lying in the same plane and the small holes being in rows that alternate with rows of large holes.

GEORGE W. NEIFERT. WILLIAM H. KUTZ. 

